USB speakers don't work after reconnecting

[Alex Fraser]

I have a set of Logitech PureFi Mobile speakers. If I connect them using USB, they work fine - but if I unplug and reconnect them (or power cycle the speakers or the USB hub), they stop working. When trying to reconnect them, the connection lights on the speakers flicker and then go out. Likewise, in the Output tab of the Sound Settings app, the device is listed momentarily and then disappears again.

Workaround: reboot, or unload the USB sound module: `sudo modprobe -r snd_usb_audio` - then everything works well again.

The device is listed from `lsusb` as:

    Bus 001 Device 043: ID 046d:ba08 Logitech, Inc.

I also have two PCI audio devices; the output of `lspci | grep -i aud` is below. This bug seems to be unrelated to these devices, but they are included for completeness.

    00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset High Definition Audio (rev 06)
    02:00.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Cedar HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 5400/6300 Series]

Attached is an excerpt from /var/log/syslog, showing the difference between a successful connection and a failed one.

Versions:
Ubuntu 12.04 (64-bit)
alsa-base 1.0.25+dfsg-0ubuntu1
pulseaudio 1:1.1-0ubuntu15.1

[dt9394 (dknyvice)]

i have the same issue, the quick fix is run "pkill pulseaudio" everytime u plug in the USB headset.

[Alex Fraser (alex-phatcore)]

Hmm, `pkill pulseaudio` doesn't seem to work for my by itself. But now it seems that `sudo modprobe -r snd_usb_audio` doesn't work by itself either - I have to do both of them, and even then it only works some of the time.

dt9394, do you have the same device? Mine is not a headset, but a small portable speaker system.

[Samuli Kauranne (samuli-kauranne)]

Confirm that the issue still exists in Ubuntu 15.04 with Pure-Fi Mobile. In this release neither of the previously suggested workarounds (without rebooting) seem to work. modprobme terminates with "FATAL: snd_usb_audio is in use"

[Marcus Tomlinson (marcustomlinson)]

This release of Ubuntu is no longer receiving maintenance updates. If this is still an issue on a maintained version of Ubuntu please let us know.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for alsa-driver (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]